A little of everything and nothing, all in one blog

Tag: sleep

As if spring wasn’t already a busy time, we’ve just added a new, huge thing to do our to do list (no, it’s not a baby). More to come…it’s all good news, it’s just now our list seems to be never ending.

Because of this long list, my mind is constantly churning. Especially when it should be sleeping. I add to my list, get worried about worst case scenarios and I can’t turn it off. I took a Benadryl the other night to combat not only the pollen in the air, but to knock myself out. It did the trick, but it gave me crazy dreams. Like whoa, dreams. My subconscious conjured up one of my most hated dreams; the return to school. I dream that I’m back in school, usually high school, but as an adult. However, this time I dreamed I was back in grade school and I couldn’t test out of 4th grade because I suck at long division. I woke up when I was yelling at the teacher “I don’t need to be here! I already did all of this!!”. It’s not a fun feeling.

Years ago I came across a website called Petrix. It basically deciphers the images in your dreams. The animals, the colors, body parts, dates, objects, etc. It give very simple explanations for the items that always give meaning beyond the sometimes scary surface.

Peter said it all has a little too positive spin…but I think that’s the part that makes it better. It give some meaning to the crazy nightmares and helps me get back to sleep. Fluff or not, it works.

Where the hell have you been?! You decided to take a vacation weeks ago and then just never returned?? What is the matter with you? How do you expect to keep your job when you are so sloppy?? No one in this house has slept more than 4 hours at a time for the last 2 months!! Four hours!! Do you know what it’s like to have to sleep in intervals and never know when you’re going to get to go to sleep and when you’re going to be woken up again?! No! You don’t! Because you’re on vacation!!

Did we do something to offend you? Was it something I said? Something Peter said? What about Auggie? He doesn’t have a big vocabulary but since he’s the center of the problem, I’m wondering if he did something….

Because if he did, just tell me. I’ll make it better. I’ll fix it, I swear. Just tell me. TELL ME. I WILL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT JUST PLEASE COME BACK!!

A friend once told me that successful people do 5 things before 8am. If my kids are up every 2-3 hours at night requiring water, clothing changes (vomit), bedding changes (you don’t want to know…), rocked back to sleep, patted back to sleep, tucked in – that is way more than 5 things we’re doing before 8am. And the fact that this pattern has been happening the last 5 nights that should make us really successful. The question is what we are successful at. At being sleep deprived? At being crabby? At being zombies? PW and I have yet to determine….

I love weeks when I can see the big picture. I can see life for what it is and find joy in small things and have patience to turn bad behavior into teaching moments. I have the energy to tackle my to do list AND be a good mom. Get down on the floor and play. Get in the kitchen and cook together. Read books and go for walks. Make dinners and clean up the kitchen before 5pm. Get the laundry and ironing done. Clear my desk of bills, work and whatever else is lurking there. These are good weeks.

This is not one of those weeks. This is definitely a little picture week. I can’t see the forest for the trees. All I can hear is a teething baby screaming, a puppy yelping and a smart mouth four year old. All I can see is the mess of toys, dishes and laundry. All I can think about is the pile of invoices that need to be created, put into envelopes, stamped and sealed. All I want to do is look at the beautiful, smart, talented little girl in front of me and say “WHY??? WHY DO YOU KNOW WHAT MY BUTTONS ARE AND WHY DO YOU INSIST ON PUSHING THEM AALLLLL THE TIME?? WHY CAN’T YOU STAY IN BED AT NIGHT?? WHY WHEN YOU STAY IN BED DO YOU SCREAM FOR A PARENT TO COME TO YOUR BEDSIDE EVERY 2 HOURS TO FIX SOME NONEXISTENT PROBLEM??? WHY ARE YOU WAKING UP YOUR BROTHER??”.

Oh yeah, we aren’t sleeping right now. Again. It’s fun. I think B has a bet with Augg on how soon the men with the big butterfly nets are coming for mommy. It won’t be long little lady. It won’t be long.

My mom told me last week that I need to remember that her behavior comes from the fact that she’s bright. Actually, her quote was “It’s because she’s smart. If she were dumb, this would be a lot easier to solve”. And she’s right. Bay is no dummy. She’s capable of great things which is why I get so incredibly frustrated when she flat out refuses to do something. Or worse, pretends that she doesn’t know how (button pusher, party of one…). I’m not asking Hellen Keller to sign supercalifragalisticexpialidotious, I’m asking Einstien to add two plus two. So why can’t she just say FOUR and we could move on?!

I guess because she really wants to see if the men with the nets have white coats….

We are so lucky that a week of “cry it out” went really well and the little guy was actually able to move into his crib in Baylor’s room. It went great! Like too good to be true….which means it wasn’t surprising when he started waking up every morning around 4am and waking Bay up too. We spent two weeks pulling him out every morning around 4am and putting him back in his pack n play in our room so he could fuss himself back to sleep without waking up B. I’m hoping another week or two of cry it out in our room will get him over this 4am wake up and back into his crib!

Until then, it’s hard to resist this view:

He’s trying hard to crawl – he gets on his hands and knees and rocks so hard that it scoots the PnP across the floor…

I was woken up early Tuesday morning by loud shouts for Mommy. As soon as my heart started again, I realized the shouts were demands for me to come to Baylor’s room and help her favorite doll, New Baby, put on her hat and find her pacifier. I ignored the first shout, but the second one infuriated me (Momma doesn’t like being woken up, even more so to help out inanimate objects). I marched to her room declaring either New Baby comes out of the crib or her accessories do, but either way, waking Mommy and Daddy up to dress a doll at 2 freaking am was completely unacceptable. There was more shouting, crying, a brief tug of war and then finally an agreement which lead to everyone except for me going back to sleep.

I laid awake for the next two hours unable to get comfortable and also thinking about when Mr. Man is here and he is sharing a room with Bay. What am I going to do when she pulls something like that and wakes the real baby? Or vise versa? Which is why I tossed and turned for the rest of the night leaving me oh-so-friendly on Tuesday morning.

The end result is that New Baby either gets put to sleep in her own bed OR her accessories do not go to sleep with her. Either way, the doll’s on notice.

Ugh. Bay’s crud has finally attacked my immune system and won. I used to put up a fierce fight when I would feel the first signs of illness coming on – lots of rest, running it out, extreme mental denial of any illness, etc. However, because my two year old now hangs out with other two year olds at preschool a few half days a week, she comes home with every illness imaginable. Because despite her classroom being very clean and constant hand washing throughout her day, preschool = cesspool. Therefore I no longer fight it. At the first sign of a tickle in my throat, I down my usual cocktail of vitamin C, Mucinex D, Zyrtec and sometimes and Advil for good measure.

After a rough night’s sleep due to a scratch throat and PW’s scratchy throat and Baylor’s scratchy throat, I was a little more sleep deprived than usual. I realized my normal morning routine was a little scattered and I couldn’t quite put my finger on what came next on the priority list. Despite my general fuzziness, we made it out the door on time.

I dropped B off and stood for a few minutes watching her interact with her buddies – they were all hanging on the playground fence laughing and waving at a car parked with two dogs inside. It always cracks me up to see what she’s doing when she doesn’t know I’m looking.

I walked to the car making mental notes to remember to bring money at pick up for the pancake breakfast, to make a note about what I had signed up to bring for the Valentine’s party and which errand I needed to get done first. I pushed the button on my keys, heard the tell tale “beep beep” of an unlocked car, opened the door and started to swing into my seat when I realized something was weird…why are my seats tan and not gray? At that point a voice from the back door said “good morning”. I looked back to see a mom pulling her kiddo out of his car seat on the passenger side. It was then I realized I had just attempted to get into someone else’s car.

Thank God the mom clearly had a sense of humor and or empathy that she didn’t scream but rather just laughed and said “same car??”. And thank goodness I had at least attempted to get into a car that was exactly like my own (there are 4 white SUVs of the same make and model at B’s school – I counted) and not one that was completely different. I proceeded to get into the correct car and drive straight to Starbucks for an extra shot of caffeine to hopefully wake myself up a little.

While retelling the story to my friend and neighbor, a mom of three, she informed me that she too had done the same thing a few years ago. So at least I’m not alone in my airheadedness. Which means I’ll have friends when PW finally checks me into the funny farm.

And this is why it takes three coats of various colors of concealer to cover up the deep, dark circles under my eyes…So looking forward to nap time on Saturday when I can catch 2 hours of guilt free sleep time.

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Welcome to the Goon Room! An homage to the lovely space in my college sorority house where the conversations rarely stopped and ranged in topics from school, to love, to life and where to go to spray tan.
Having left the hallowed walls of Alpha Phi years ago, I have started The Goon Room to channel some creative energy and also make my friends laugh. I hope you enjoy!